Record price for a RAF 32 pattern Mae West

[Lebensgefahr]

At a recent auction in the midlands a RAF 32 pattern Mae West (complete with bladder and kapocs) reached the record price of £6000. A military dealer friend of mine went armed with several thousand pounds but was blown out of the water and he wasn`t even the under bidder. While I`m not suggesting that £6000 will now become the new bench mark for 32 patterns it will inevitably raise the accepted price level. For quite some time (on the rare occasions that they do turn up) they have been changing hands in the region of £3500 plus but this will now inevitably rise judging by the price my friend was willing to pay.
On another forum they regularly quote the accepted price as £1000 to £1500 but they haven`t been that price for over a decade. Having said that this did me a large favour as the chap I bought my last one off (last year) had been quoted that price by a member of that forum.
A few years ago I had a conversation with my dealer friend about whether prices would continually rise or reach a plateau and stop, I was of the latter opinion but my friend believed the former. It`s now pretty obvious that he was right and I was spectacularly wrong.
Truly this has become a rich mans hobby and while the constant price rises are great for people with established collections it is a shame that new collectors will inevitably be priced out of the market, always assuming that they haven`t been already.
Having said that I recently got the bargain of the century when I picked up an ultra rare item which no one else seemed to pick up on which was so cheap that I`m still kicking myself. So while bargains are still out there they are much fewer and farther between.
Perseverance seems to be the key as one has to plough through an awful lot of crap in the hope of finding something good.

Happy collecting
Tally Ho
LG

 

[dujardin]

where are the limits ?????

 

[philip.ed]

I find this an interesting topic. Personally I don't think this is in anyway indicative of how much these vests are worth. It only shows what one man (and perhaps a few others) are willing to pay. When an item is so scarce it most definitely does become a rich man's sport, however if 30 of these vests were released on the market at once I would be very surprised if 30 people emerged who could afford that kind of money. At that price I do think collecting become's rather stupid from an investment perspective. He may recoup that £6000 if he sold that vest again, but he may be lucky to realise a worthy return. If that is what the item is worth to him then that is all that matters, but as far as the item's sale goes in impacting the hobby as a whole I think it only shows what some are willing to fork out.
A friend of mine was one of the first to pay £700 for a 1940 b-type. As prices stand today he most definitely overpayed as the b-type market has calmed down considerably.

The real question now is whether all owners of 32-patterns believe their vests are worth £6000. If they do and they aren't happy to settle for less, the collecting world definitely enters a glass ceiling only the rich can hope to reach.

Are you happy to share what that rare item you picked up is, LG? It sounds incredibly interesting!

 

[Lebensgefahr]

Ben
I agree with you that the price paid was the exception rather than the rule and that as I said before this probably doesn`t set a new bench mark for 32 pattern`s but my friend who spoke to the buyer afterwards told me that the buyer was prepared to pay what it took to get one and that he was prepared to go higher still. With regard to the comment I made about it being a rich mans hobby I meant the hobby in general rather than any specific item as with any extremely rare item they usually come with a very hefty price tag, although I must say that I was genuinely astonished at the price the Mae West achieved. As you rightly say, at that price it is not an investment it was just something the buyer badly wanted and it was worth it to him.
I don`t believe anyone would get anything like £6000 for a Mae West on ebay as things generally don`t seem to sell for the same amount on there as dealers regularly get on their sites. Quite often I see people paying much more for an item from a dealer than for an identical item on ebay. I believe (and so does my dealer friend) that people don`t have the confidence to trust their own judgement and would rather rely on a dealers honesty (or not in one or two cases !).
With regard to a number of Mae West`s becoming available, I agree that there would only be a small amount of people who could afford that sort of money but if one seller had even a few to sell it would not be in his interests to release more than one at a time over a long period of time to maximise his profit. Personally I don`t think there will ever be a quantity of a particular piece of kit found/released (as per the E* masks years ago) onto the market again, those days are long gone.
With regard to your friends B helmet, he definitely paid way too much but I imagine most people have at one time or another paid too much for an item if they really wanted it (I know I have), it only becomes a problem if it`s done on a regular basis.
At the risk of being churlish I don`t want to say what the item I bought is because although it is in good condition it could be upgraded and in the extremely unlikely event of another one becoming available (this is only the second known surviving example), if people are unaware of it`s rarity there would be a better chance of securing it. To me this sort of item is the Holy Grail of collecting, an item that was in widespread use but of which virtually no examples remain. While one offs are rare and collectable for me the once common items that are seldom seen are the ones to get. I might be wrong ( I usually am ) but I think that if you asked most collectors if they thought this item was rare they would think it probably wasn`t. Everyone knows that items like MK IVa and MK Vb goggles are rare but it seems quite possibly that this item has slipped under the radar. I had fully expected the bidding to be heavy but in the event only one other person bid and I had to pay the princely sum of £26. Pound for pound and even allowing for items which I have owned for a long time increasing dramatically in value it is probably the best result I have ever had. Consequently I hope you understand my reluctance to say what it is. Normally I`m only too happy to answer questions (always assuming I know the answer) but in this case I want to keep my own council. Even my two close friends won`t know about it until they see it on display when they next visit.

Happy collecting.
LG

 

[Lebensgefahr]

Further to my earlier post regarding value, my friend has just picked up his second 32 pattern Mae West for £3350 (that is just the shell, no kapocs or bladder) which is roughly in line with the prices I mentioned earlier and less than the sort of prices my dealer friend would want. So it would seem to suggest that the one that sold for £6000 was indeed a one off but that these remain probably one of the most expensive and sought after pieces of WW2 flying kit, possibly only second to the Parasuit in terms of price and desirability.